


Shut Down

by persesphone



Category: Cloak & Dagger (Comics), Cloak & Dagger (TV 2018), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Beginnings, Character Study, Gen, Wordcount: 100-2.000, i really wanted to write something about them, i wrote this after episode four, the divine pairing, this did not get attention of tumblr so I'm trying here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 15:35:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15027743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persesphone/pseuds/persesphone
Summary: Across town, there’s a girl of grit and a glowing crystal-shaped dagger in her hands, and she’ll be everything he’ll want, all of his unanswered questions to this boy with a voice as warm as honey and darkness swirling around his fingers. She’s the other side of the coin that’s him, and he’ll be everything that she didn’t know she’ll need.





	Shut Down

**Author's Note:**

> this is a short drabble of a character study about Tyrone and Tandy’s beginning relatively early on in the tv series. this was first written after the two-episode premiere at 2 in the morning but was edited after episode four. and i know there isn't much to go by with these characters but i really wanted to write something

Tyrone dies four hours before midnight and his brother’s blood is on his hands.

Well, sort of.

He drowns in the harbor less than fifteen minutes from his home in New Orleans. He’s small, barely four feet tall, and not even strong enough to come close to beating his brother at arm wrestling—and he’s jumping over the rail of a dock after seeing two bullets get buried in his brother’s chest.   

> _You’re scared that if I don’t do the right thing, you’ll lose me_

Tyrone drowns in dark waters and the world is a blur. And at first, it’s weird—the panic—the terror—the _realization_  doesn’t hit until a day later. Until he’s convinced that the whole night—the whole death witnessed—had been a dream. A figment.

“You’re probably confused,” he’s told. “That happens to victims of trauma. You recall events that didn’t actually happen and faces that weren’t there. It’s completely normal.”

He’s lost the oversized black jacket stolen from his brother’s closet, and his short curls are unbrushed and he’s needing a new haircut, he knows, and he’s crying in the backseat of his parent’s car because it’s his fault. All of this is _his fault_.

“It’s complete normal,” he’s told.

But Tyrone isn’t normal, because one night ten years ago, he drowns.

And then he’s got a basketball jersey shirt with his name on it, he’s a well liked, well talented, drenches his head in Gatorade and under the warm waters of a shower head, is close to getting a full-ride scholarship for college, and smells salt-sweat from the bleachers and Pine-sol and chlorine, and he has a _headache_. There’s smoke in his lungs and blood trickling down his face. 

There’s a void, ink-black and consuming. His parents smile but he cries every year on a birthday that isn’t his.

None of what had happened was a dream. 

> _No. I’m afraid that even if you do the right thing, I’ll lose you anyway. Like your brother_

There’s poison running, rushing through his veins and he has to drain it out. Tear an opening. Make a slice in his arm soon, desperately. Watch it run and ooze and drip down to the tile, his body flooding with relief. His brain feels like it has holes in it. This desire is consuming.

There’s blood coming from his nose, from his busted gums, and he’s itching for there to be an eye for an eye, for a feeble revenge, for a desperation to get his brother back.

Across town, there’s a girl of grit with a bloody gash in her palm and a glowing crystal-shaped dagger in her hands, who he’ll see in a vision of white, blinding light and fear. She’ll be everything he’ll want, all of his unanswered questions. She’s the other side of the coin that’s him.

 

* * *

 

Tandy has learned a lot of things from her mother.

She learns how to think critically and quickly and criminally—how to isolate a target, how to zero-in and smooth talk, how to find alternate exits and easily accessible getaways, and how to scan a room’s occupants upon entry. She learns how to measure, to examine excuses, faces, and lies; pick pockets, forging scripts, and make exaggerations, _lies_.

She has learned an incredibly large amount of knowledge from her mother. Like how to accept what you can and run away from what you can’t.

She’s especially learned how to run.

There’s an aged cadillac in an alley where she can be found on some night, a lit substance being smoked, her skirt hiked, and imagining another world behind her eyes as a distraction, a diversion. 

> _This isn’t a house. This is a temporary shelter—and he’s just another asshole on the sex tour of the female islands_

There’s a little pink bag filled with prescription pills kept hidden, slightly bandaged up over the years and there’s an outlined etch where a cartoon Pony used to be, torn off long ago.

Tandy has learned how to strategize, how to infiltrate and disguise, plot and steal, how to hide in the shadows and always keep others at arms-distance, and carry everything on her shoulders, silently, with a sly smile and a twinkle in her eye, and to not tell anyone. No one. Ever.

From her mother—from both of her parents, really—she’s learned how to adapt, how to avoid and block reality, and grit her teeth against the sudden, blinding pain of having everything crashing around her, to make the best of a situation no matter what. And when her fingernails are digging in so deeply that they draw flecks of blood, she accepts that too. Wipes her tears, dries her eyes, and redressed with the mask of indifference.

One thing she hadn’t counted on had been nearly committing _murder_.

> _Things are going to get tough so Tandy is gonna run away? If your father was still alive, he would be so heartbroken about what you’ve become_

So now she’s running again, barricading the door, and crouching and screaming at stained glass angels and cups of bittersweet liquid sorrow, and then into pills—pills that are pretty and snowy whites, or powder blues, or dull reds. She runs, sells out her life and her friends and her future.

There’s a scar on her arm earned during a car crash many years ago from when she was small. She doesn’t remember much—except for the bright headlights of a semi truck crashing into the side of her father’s small four door car, then them falling into the harbor, and then a dark cloud moving like ink through the ocean water. And when she reached through it, she found herself on a beach. The dark cloud saved her. She doesn’t know why. She doesn’t _want_ to know how.

She’s afraid to know.

She’s always afraid. And she _hates_ that, despises that.

Somewhere across town, there’s a boy with questions burning in the back of his mind, like her, wearing a flowing dark cloak. And suddenly, he appears in the middle of the road towards her onrushing getaway car, hollering, enraged at a wrong target. He leaves but reappears in a blink, like she’s unable to get away, like he’s tethered to her. Both treading carefully, she’ll meet this boy with a voice as warm as honey and darkness swirling around his fingers, and he’ll be everything that she didn’t know she needs.

**Author's Note:**

> **please, feedback is the only thing I ask for, please**


End file.
